Grit, elemental rhythm, tight-as-a-drumhead playing, and a profound depth of feeling: these are the promises of a great soul band…and St. Paul & The Broken Bones deliver on those promises.
Half The City is the compelling full-length Single Lock/Thirty Tigers debut of the Birmingham, Alabama-based sextet, who have already created a maelstrom of interest with their roof-raising live shows and self-released four-song 2012 EP. Produced by Ben Tanner of Alabama Shakes, and recorded and mixed in the storied R&B mecca of Muscle Shoals, Alabama, the album harkens back to the region’s classic soul roots while extending the form with electrifying potency.

Nashville’s Plowboy Records is pleased to announce the signing of Chuck Mead and the release of his new record Free State Serenade. A wild ride of hillbilly blues and honky-tonk, Mead, best known for his work as frontman for BR549, wrote the album based on the stories, legends, crimes and lonesome open roads of his childhood and formative years in Kansas. Recorded with his longtime band The Grassy Knoll Boys, Free State Serenade was co-produced with Joe Pisapia (kd Lang, Ben Folds Five) and features special guests BR549’s Don Herron and Old Crow Medicine Show’s Critter Fuqua.

Free State Serenade jumps from jaunty mountain airs like “Neosho Valley Sue,” with BR5-49’s Don Herron lending his fiddle to what Mead calls a “coming of age ditty,” to “Sittin’ On Top Of The Bottom” – a whip-smart ode to “Sittin’ On Top Of The World.” Reaching into the dark lore of Kansas history, “The Devil By Their Side” is a chugging rock n’ roll number about William Quantrill’s murderous 1863 Civil War raid on Lawrence, Kansas.

AMIGO consists of band members Slade Baird (guitar,vocals), Adam Phillips (drums, vocals) and Thomas Alverson (bass guitar). The 11 original tracks are a masterful blend of Americana, blues, honky-tonk and rock and roll, with tasty layers of pedal steel guitars, horns, pianos and organs.  It is not easy to label this band with one genre of music. From the pedal steel driven opening track “Where Have All the Bad Times Gone?” to the toe tapping, Fogerty inflected closing track “Good Luck,” the band’s new album  Might Could will appeal to fans of bands such as Wilco, The Flying Burrito Brothers, The Band and early Whiskeytown.

Might Could was recorded and mixed by Scott Solter (Superchunk, The Mountain Goats, John Vanderslice) at Baucom Road Studio.  Dave Harris (Hootie & The Blowfish, Southern Culture on The Skids) mastered the album at Studio B in Charlotte, NC.   The recording features a plethora of talent aside from the original trio, including: Mark Baran (bass guitar); Whit Wright (pedal steel guitar); Aaron Phillips (tenor saxophone); Ashley Proctor (vocals, handclaps); Courtney Watkins (alto saxophone);  Courtney Wyatt (trumpet); Greg Ellis (guitar); and Jay Shirley (Hammond organ, Wurlitzer, and piano).

It’s part record club, part music journal.  The new Singles Club and its first installment is available now.  Issue #1 is by Daniel Bachman.

Singles Club consists of a series of limited edition 7″ records released quarterly and delivered straight to your door. Side A features track recorded exclusively for the club. Side B features a narrative composition with the artist. You’ll even get a Singles Club 45 box that you can fill up as new issues roll in. All limited to 250 copies. When they’re out, they’re out. (So check it out as soon as you can).

Geryon is a musical endeavor that takes an alternative approach to death metal. Using only bass guitar and drums, Nick McMaster & Lev Weinstein weave a debut 12″ that builds on their past work together (Krallice, Astomatous, Hymn) while founding something all together new. Throughout this four track, 26 minute album, Geryon delivers intricate, abrasive death metal with a touch melody. Music that is as thick and lush as anything composed using more conventional metal instrumentation.  Available now from Gilead Media.

Scarcity was recorded Live in Concert at Audio Rebel’s Quintavant, Rio De Janeiro, Brazil July 2nd 2013.  Available on deluxe 180 gram vinyl with a tip-on jacket in an extremely limited quantity.  Easiest option for ordering is through Catalytic Sound – grab it while it lasts!

The Austin TX based Paper Moons coupling has been crafting incredibly sincere indie folk songs since 2007. No Love is their second full length offering since 2008, following their last release New Tales. This record is 10 new songs of simply astounding beauty and songwriting craftsmanship. Subtle vocals wisp through layered guitars and simple, but perfectly placed drumming.  After seeing a Fall 2013 digital release on legendary emo label Deep Elm, Stormchasers LTD is overjoyed to give these songs a proper vinyl release.

Recorded in northern California in 1984 and released in a micro edition by the Creative Sound imprint in January of the following year, Journey to the Light is a true lost gem of private issue New Age music, an album that is more spoken about than heard and deserves to be recognized alongside established classics of the genre. For too long it has languished out of print and been nearly impossible to come by, occasionally popping up in private auctions only to be snatched up by savvy collectors.

Performed with processed electric guitar, zither, voice, and field recordings, it is unabashedly beautiful music- two sidelong pieces that feel as though they may have always existed, hanging in the air like a morning fog over the Pacific. For as archetypal to the genre as Banning’s compositions might appear to be, it would be remiss not to comment on their singular nature, on what sets them apart from those works to which one would be inclined to compare them. Indeed, Banning’s music has a seriousness and intensity that was absent from much of the New Age scene as it existed in the early ’80s.

Available soon from Students of Decay.

Partly inspired by the true story of the Salton Sea, a failed river redirection to assist Californian agricultural development at the turn of the 20th century, Rafael Anton Irisarri’s The Unintentional Sea mimics the ideas of transformation of place. During the1950s, this ecological disaster was seized and rebranded by corporate land developers, turning it into a dream getaway destination. Before long, record temperatures and a rising level of water mineralization led to the mass death of fish and other wildlife, and in turn so too did the resort town’s population, leaving behind a vast post-human deserted wasteland. This unintentional sea had given life and now has taken it away.

The follow-up to the much acclaimed The North Bend, this album continues Irisarri’s development of landscape inspired musical renderings. Like the Salton Sea of today his latest edition is a gently churning portrait of fluidity. It’s a record that sounds like staring at a vast ocean in light breeze. Layer upon layer of currents swirl below the surface, while gentle surges and waves coalesce creating fleeting patterns and moments of intermeshed sonics. As these elements meet and break away again, a sense of motion – both micro and macro – is created, a rendering of the ocean calm before the inevitable storm. Coated in a thick blanket of bass tonality, flickers of light catch on the crests of these waves, uneasy jewels of sonic light that appear as quickly as they disappear.

Available from Room40 now.

Victory and Associates write rock anthems that you did not know you needed. punk rock passion, post punk sass, big riffs, etc. Take the parts of huge classic rock you may actually WANT to turn up, mix it with the parts of indie rock that ROCK, get it moving with driving, energetic force and you are on the trail to victory… and associates. 

Try to catch them on tour, and grab their new record — Better Luck Next Life.